On Saturday, underneath a painted banner strung across the porch of Hillcrest Apartments in Tacoma, tenants announced the formation of the Wright Park Tenant Union.
The union represents tenants at three buildings near Wright Park: Brown, Dreher and Hillcrest. Those apartments are in the process of being sold to BlackRock Communities NW, a property management and construction company based in Puyallup.
“ We came together ultimately to figure out how we can protect our family and work together with our new management as we go through this change,” said Jamie Lucero, who has lived in each of the different buildings over the past decade.
The tenants want to make sure the sale doesn't worsen their living conditions. Tenants fear that they could be evicted if the new property owners decide to renovate the older buildings, where some have lived for over 30 years.
“It doesn't seem unreasonable for us to just ask the new owners — BlackRock — to take us seriously, wonder what it would be like if they were in our place, and how they would like to be treated,” said Bill Schlanbusch, who has lived at one of the apartments for 14 years.
According to the union, over 70% of residents at the three buildings have signed on. While no law requires landlords to recognize or bargain with tenants in a union, there’s a growing movement around the city to organize places of residence.
For about five years, Schlanbusch said the tenants have all been on month-to-month leases. Now, with a buyer in sight, they want to keep their homes and establish leases with their input.
“ My biggest concern and my involvement with this movement is protection for our elders. The folks here are truly my family, and we have a lot of people that have been here for 10, 20, 30 years,” Lucero said.
The Wright Park Tenant Union is asking for no rent increases or evictions for the first 12 months of the new ownership, guaranteed units for tenants who have been in any of the buildings for more than five years, no breed restrictions on pets, a host of repairs, and policies on maintenance.
Daniel Casey is the owner of BlackRock Communities NW. In an email, Casey wrote that due to the terms of the pending purchase agreement, he cannot yet speak with tenants directly and didn’t think it would be appropriate for him to address the organizing efforts publicly.
He was willing to share general plans for similar buildings that BlackRock Communities NW owns. Leases and other contracts in a property sale are transferred from the previous owner to the new owner, and terms would not change until the lease agreements were over.
“ What will typically happen is once that current lease expires and it's time to renew, we would renew people into our standard lease, which really isn't materially different,” Casey said.
He said the company doesn’t typically do major renovations on buildings like these and would wait to do any in-depth upgrades to individual units until they were vacant.
“ We're typically interested in what can we do to make the building more safe and secure,” Casey said. He gave examples like changing the locking systems, replacing mailboxes and painting trim.
He said that unless there is an extreme, emergent need, his company does not request current tenants to vacate their units for remodels.
“It would only be in some sort of an extreme repair scenario where we would ever ask a tenant to vacate their unit temporarily,” Casey said.
He said that while they do utilize a digital property management system, many tenants in other buildings they own still pay rent with paper checks.
Meanwhile, tenants at the three buildings are hoping they will be able to negotiate terms of those new lease agreements with Casey.
Read the audio transcript here.
